The Maly Trascjanec camp
The Maly Trascjanec extermination site, around twelve kilometers south of the Belarusian capital Minsk, was one of the many scenes of the Shoah. The immediate vicinity of the village was the easternmost deportation destination of the German occupiers during World War II.
View of the Maly Trascjanec agricultural estate
Between 40,000 and 60,000 people were murdered in Maly Trascjanec between 1941 and 1944, most of them Jews. In general, there is always talk of the extermination site in Maly Trascjanec; Geographically, this place includes, in addition to the village of the same name, a former kolkhoz area, the Blahaǔščyna forest clearing several kilometers away as well as the Šaškoǔka forest in the immediate vicinity of the collective farm. A camp was set up on the site of the former "Karl-Marx" kolkhoz in 1941, in which up to 600 forced laborers were accommodated at peak times. It was surrounded by three large barbed wire fences designed to keep prisoners from escaping. A total of around 250 guards guarded the area from 1942.1
View of the fence of the Maly Trascjanec camp in July 1944
After the deported people had arrived in Maly Trascjanec, they were treated according to a well-established scheme: First their valuables were taken from them and they had to undress. Healthy, young and able-bodied prisoners – mainly men – were transported to the camp. Here the prisoners were coerced into forced labour in the agricultural sector and in various handicraft businesses. The rest of the prisoners were taken to the nearby Blahaǔščyna forest, where they were murdered.2
The charred bodies of over 6,000 people at the burnt barn in the Maly Trascjanec camp
In June 1944, when the recapture of Minsk by the Red Army was clearly in sight, the German occupiers were forced to retreat. They herded the remaining forced laborers, as well as inmates from the surrounding prisons, into a barn on the premises of the Maly Trascjanec camp. Here, the people who had managed to survive so far were murdered and then burned along with the building. Only about 20 people managed to escape before being killed. When the Soviet troops arrived on 3 July 1944, the barn was still burning.3
Responsible for content: Paulin Wandschneider
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1Cf. Kohl, Trostenez - Das Vernichtungslager bei Minsk, in: Projektgruppe Belarus (Hrsg.): Existiert das Ghetto noch? Weißrußland: Jüdisches Überleben gegen nationalsozialistische Herrschaft.", p.
2 Cf. Rentrop, Maly Trostinez, in: Benz/Distel (Hrsg.): Der Ort des Terrors. Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, Bd. 9: Arbeitserziehungslager, Durchgangslager, Ghettos, Polizeihaftlager, Sonderlager, S.
3 Cf. Kohl, Trostenez - Das Vernichtungslager bei Minsk, in: Projektgruppe Belarus (Hrsg.):"Existiert das Ghetto noch? Weißrußland: Jüdisches Überleben gegen nationalsozialistische Herrschaft.", p.